Confession: I’m totally nosy. And with the perfectly curated social media world we live in, I find myself craving the real stuff. The raw details, you know? I want to see the how not just the what. I’ve been blogging (though now seemingly “on & off”–but that’s finally changing, promise) since the spring of 2009. That’s over 10 years, y’all.
In those 10 years, I’ve kept various different schedules. I maintained a 5 day a week publishing schedule for many years. Then I dropped down to three. Then two. And then, once I launchd my first company, I focused the majority of my time on that website–still publishing weekly. The phases they come and they go. But one thing remains the same: publishing content is a lot of work.
I think that’s the most surprising aspect to pretty much everyone who decides to dip their toe into the content creation world. It’s not all fun photos and quick write ups. No, no. Not at all. There’s so much work that goes in behind the scenes. And when you’re trying to keep a consistent schedule (which, if you’re trying to grow your website at all, you have to keep a consistent schedule), you gotta take all the help you can get.
I’m a planner for sure, and I’m one organized chicka–but I was struggling with everything. I’ll be honest, that’s a lot of the reason I fell off the publishing bandwagon for so long. There are so many social media platforms that juggling all the various scheduling tools was all just getting to be too much. And expensive. Really expensive.
I was having to toggle between three different scheduling tools plus my CMS (WordPress) just to get all the content mapped out and scheduled. And you guys–I’m organized. I am. But I was having a hard time keeping track of everything. And then I finally just sort of gave up.
You’re not new here: you know how I feel about social media. I loathe it. Loathe it. But it’s necessary for content promotion. And eventually, all of the fun was just sucked out of the entire process entirely.
As you all know, I recently launched a podcast. And I’m reintroducing weekly blog content into the fold. (I don’t know why, but I was sort of expecting some cheering there…moving on…) I manage and write blog content for clients. And I coach creatives. I’ve got a lot going on. So hunting down a content management tool that kept my content creation life as straight forward and streamlined as possible was a top priority.
ENTER: COSCHEDULE, WHAT MY CONTENT PLANNING AND ORGANIZING DREAMS ARE MADE OF
I’m on the individual plan which is perfect for bloggers, start ups and soloproneurs who are looking to organize their blog and social media content. Basically, the editorial tool puts everything I need into one place. I can capture my content ideas, plan out my content schedule, manage tasks and create social media campaigns all from the same platform. I mean, do you hear those angels singing? Because y’all. This platform is a freaking game changer for anyone out there who has content to manage.
They do have other plans available in case you manage multiple content platforms or work with a team of people. And they also have different power up packages that can take your workflow management to a whole new level (I have my eye on the work organizer package). These upgraded plans allow you to manage all of your marketing efforts in one place.
HOW I USE COSCHEDULE
As a whole, I use the platform to plan, organize, manage and schedule all of my content. That includes podcast show notes, blog posts, social media (including Pinterest!!) and my email marketing. It syncs beautifully with wordpress.org so I’m actually able to manage everything either from the coschedule dashboard or the WordPress dashboard.
The piece of the puzzle that sold me is the fact that I can create social media campaigns directly within my “blog” content. This, for me, includes blog posts and podcast episodes with the show notes. And to take things a step further, I actually created promotional campaign templates for both types of content. Additionally, with the use of what they call “helpers” I’m able to automate the content where it’ll generate the social posts for me based on the helpers I designate. Seriously, this tool is a dream for anyone who doesn’t necessarily love all the extra work social media promotion requires.
Once everything is scheduled, it appears on the calendar so I can easily see any gaps in my content (if there are any). I’m also able manage all of my tasks for the content as well by using the task manager within each project and scheduling those out accordingly.
IS COSCHEDULE WORTH IT?
You know, I’m one to stick with the easiest and most affordable option when it comes to pretty much everything. Especially as people are starting out. But time is money–and creating, promoting and managing content can take a lot of time. If you’re someone who create content consistently, or you’re someone who wants to create content consistently, yeah. Coschedule is worth it. I’m actually slightly annoyed that I didn’t know something as robust as this existed when we were all blogging our little hearts out all those years ago.
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